From the report by Rita Crecelius:
For 5 years now, I have been trying to establish the ICDP programme in the field of health care for professional caregivers in Germany, particularly focusing on daycares, nurseries and institutions for people with special needs.
During this year, the ICDP approach had a better reception than before. I think this is because most of the institutions in the country seem to be facing health problems. Issues such as shortage of staff, high sickness rates and more bureaucratic duties than ever, are generating high stress levels in caregivers, and that is negatively affecting their relationships with the recipients of their care. Consequently, children are showing more behavioural problems. The rates of depression, panic symptoms and suicide among children are on the increase. There is a growing awareness, that children’s health and wellbeing depend on the resilience of their caregivers, a notion that is also at the core of ICDP intervention: to strengthen caregivers experiencing difficulties. Some of my ICDP activities in 2023:
ICDP in daycares which had already been involved in ICDP training:
1. In the St. Thomas daycare in Hildesheim, which is the first daycare where I trained staff members in ICDP, I conducted a refresher programme to strengthen their application of the ICDP relational approach. They are always very grateful for staying in touch with the ICDP wisdom. Together, we had a wonderful start in 2023, we made a circle of appreciation for keeping children safe, secure, soothed and seen (D. Siegel) in difficult times.
2. In the Kinderhaus FrechDaxe in Braunschweig, (a daycare of Impuls Soziales Management), the training of 50 FrechDaxe staff members, started in February, albeit with a small delay due to financial problems. This was the training of the first of five teams, and by the end of August two more teams followed, and the remaining two teams will be starting their training in ICDP in January 2024. Over a period of 5 sessions, each team is given the opportunity to practice their skills in video analysis and drawing interaction profiles. After this phase of instruction, the teams should be able to supervise each other in reflecting on their daily interactions from the point of view of the 8 ICDP guidelines. All daycare workers, who had done the training in 2021, reported that they were happy to be back in the ICDP world. They said that ICDP had always accompanied them and that they still enjoy the benefit of applying the guidelines, especially when working with very young children during their adjustment phase.
Read here the full report.